Referendums also contribute to reducing parliamentary sovereignty. This is simply because they are another way of passing the decision-making down to the people. Referendums are also a form of “popular sovereignty” as they favour the majority, rather than parliamentary sovereignty.
Parliamentary sovereignty is also greatly affected by the party system. The government is formed from the largest party in the house. Most laws are now initiated more by the government than by parliament. This further reduces parliamentary sovereignty.
There has also been outside pressure from pressure groups, which contributes to the reduction o parliamentary sovereignty. One of these pressure groups was the Countryside Alliance. They put tremendous pressure on parliament to revise its ban on fox hunting. There has also been pressure from the trade unions. They ended up forcing parliament to amend the 1971 industrial relations act.
Parliamentary sovereignty has also been reduced by Britain’s dealings abroad. Membership of NATO requires parliament to hand over some of the decision making over defence and foreign policy. This is a contributing factor to the reduction of parliamentary sovereignty.
Globalisation further reduces parliaments role in decision-making. The rise of big businesses has stripped parliament of making many of the economic decisions.
A small part has also been played by devolution. Devolution means the giving of power to other devolved bodies.
Finally, the E.U probably plays the largest role in reducing parliamentary sovereignty. As far as law is concerned, EU law takes precedence over UK domestic law. EU legislation also becomes law within the UK automatically, regardless of what the UK parliament wants. It can also be said that the SEA, Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice treaties reduce parliamentary sovereignty as they remove some decision making from parliament.
Overall it can be seen that while parliament do enjoy sovereignty in some areas of the constitution, there are actually many factors that reduce parliamentary sovereignty. Some of these do in fact have quite a large influence on the extent of parliamentary sovereignty.
